Part 3 – Participating in Reduction-in-Force (Layoffs)!

“Cost cutting!”, “Realizing more value to our shareholders!”, “Right sizing to be relevant for the next decade!”, “Time to look at operational efficiency!”, “Being responsive to the market demands!”, “This isn’t a charity organization, there is a cut-throat competition out there”!!!

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“The stupid management is at it again!”, “Lets hope our access cards work tomorrow morning!”, “After so many years at the firm, how can one become redundant overnight?”, “If they knew they had to let go people, why did they start hiring in the first place?”, “I heard they are not even giving 2 months salary this time!”, “Why don’t they simply fire all managers? They don’t add any value anyways”!!!

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And there you are – a Manager sandwiched between these two extremely passionate emotions coming down from the Sr. Management and your team members.

Welcome to the world of Layoffs!

Obviously, as much as it is painful for the company to decide its number of headcount reduction, its equally painful for the managers to put names against those numbers.

The amusing part about this exercise is that, except you (as your team’s immediate manager), everyone will pretend to know every single detail about the impending layoffs at your organization. Starting from the analysts at the Wall Street, the press, your neighbors, your dentist and even your school-going kids!!!

So, its quite obvious for your team members to expect you to know the details. Starting from how many will be impacted; exact date and time when it is going to happen; perks and benefits that the impacted individuals would get; notice period etc., etc… What adds fuel to the fire is a generic HR email to employees not to believe in rumors and reach out to immediate managers for clarifications!!! If only you were a soothsayer, having the faintest ability to predict!!!

During this uncertainty, the first thing you would do to help yourself is to prepare yourself with data. Your team size is only one dimension of it. One needs to be prepared with complete details like the Full Time Employees Vs Consultants; number of people who are in probation; long term leave / Maternity or career breaks or yet to complete a full year review cycle; count of people under each skillsets, under each corporate grades, under each sub-teams (if you happen to manage multiple teams), resignees and pipeline hires etc. This would form the basis of your inclusion and exclusion list of team members.

The question to ask yourself is that if there were to be only one person in the team to be let go – who would that person be? Similarly, if there were to be only one person to remain in the team – who would that be? Extrapolating the scenario, what you would have is a stack ranking of your team members in the order of their relevance in the team. The importance of that individual is nothing to do with his current assignment or current skillset or current corporate grade. It is that person around whom you could build a new team when the cloud passes over – person with the most transferable skills! It also doesn’t mean that people who would be impacted are any less talented. Its just the need of the hour.

After you have prepared yourself with data, its wait and watch. Most often, the HR or Sr. Management might decide to cut workforce based on already existing data (9-box, year-end ratings, compensation profiles, unprofitable departments, potentially offshorable division etc.). This of course would be way beyond your remit or influence.

If you get a chance to participate and decide, you could choose to be a protectionist trying to avoid any impact in your team. Alternately, you could use this as an opportunity to clean up some of the chronic issues in your team. After all, you or your predecessors might have made some hiring mistakes and desperately looking for an apt moment (escape route) to correct your mistakes!

Assuming you are on the rummy table along with your peer managers playing a protectionist. Your best bet would be to play by keeping the cards close to your chest. This might sound contrary to “team spirit” and being transparent! If you have done your homework correctly, you would even know people outside your immediate team (but within the same department) who could potentially make the list. Its about having a 360 degree view and supplementing it with justifications. Very often, the numbers are at the department or business unit level and seldom at an individual team’s level.

On the contrary, if you are over-friendly and put up all your options on the table, you would end up loosing all of them (without any considerations to your pre- and post- conditions)! You need to play one card at a time, play your cards late but also be prepared for all your cards to be snatched out of you.

As a seasoned manager, one need to remember that if at all there is any thing to be kept confidential, it is that long list and short list that is being prepared. No friendship or proximity with your team members should let you to dilute that confidentiality. Similarly, no friendship, proximity or knowing of financial or personal circumstances of your team member should influence you in your decisions. The team equation should be paramount rather than your equation with that individual.

While you are at it, your team members might be wondering what the management team are huddling up for! The least you could do to your team during this period, is to make yourself visible on the floor. If your team is distributed, ensure you make regular visits and work out of those multiple offices. Keep your doors open, have lunch or Tea sessions with your team members and engage them in positive manner. The last thing you want is that the Sr Management deciding not to do any RIFs and your talent cream resigns suspecting one!!! Uncertainty Kills!!!

In the unfortunate event of your team members getting impacted, you would have dual responsibilities.

Your primary responsibility would be to regroup your team after the event. Communicate clearly that the exercise is now over and let your team know the people impacted and the broad rationale behind this exercise. Depending on the impact, you would need to now re-align the team’s priorities and possibly reassess the deliverable timelines and ensure the new team structure is comfortable in delivering it. Clearly defining the new roles and responsibilities will help the team get over the forced-forming stage and move into performing quickly. More importantly, be with the team and let them vent it out in front of you than at your back!

Secondly, you need to try and reach out to the impacted individuals and offer any help they might need. Some may feel victimized and may not value any reasoning you might want to offer. Give them the needed space. You can instead try and reach out to their friends or colleagues to offer any help that the impacted individuals may need (working in background).

Now, a parting thought! How would you react to a scenario when you thought you have just passed over a major RIF cycle and a sudden re-org and top management change demands you start hiring again???!!! Welcome to the world called Sinewave!!!

(published 31st July 2015)